Chalkboard
Open in tool →Slate green with chalk cream and a coral — nostalgic without being twee.
Color
#28281b
#28281b
hex
#28281brgb
rgb(40, 40, 27)hsl
hsl(60, 19%, 13%)oklch
oklch(0.273 0.023 107.8)Closest name: Bitter Liquorice (#262926)Relative luminance 0.0205
Colors that go with #28281b
Charcoal, Amber and Blue lead the list. Each partner is a real named colour with the reason it works — a wheel relationship, a neutral that carries it, or a pairing lifted from a palette or brand system that actually shipped — and every pair opens in the palette tool.
Charcoal #36454f
neutralshippedCharcoal is the text near-black that reads cleanly against #28281b without the hard edge of pure #000.
Amber #ffbf00
shippedAmber is paired with #28281b in 18 real palettes, including McDonald's's brand system and Wikipedia's brand system, as the lead colour.
Blue #0000ff
shipped23 real palettes, including Headspace's brand system and Readymag's brand system put Blue beside #28281b, as the accent.
Blue Violet #8a2be2
shippedBlue Violet is paired with #28281b in 8 real palettes, including ClickUp's brand system and Yahoo's brand system, as the lead colour.
Blush Pink #e8b4b8
shipped7 real palettes, including Graphite Mono and Rain Garden put Blush Pink beside #28281b, as the accent.
Brown #a52a2a
shipped5 real palettes, including Typewriter and Woodsmoke put Brown beside #28281b, as the accent.
Burlywood #deb887
shippedBurlywood is paired with #28281b in 6 real palettes, including Chalkboard and Kiln, as the lead colour.
Cadet Blue #5f9ea0
shippedDesigners have shipped Cadet Blue with #28281b: 10 real palettes, including Clean Beauty and Paper & Pine, as the lead colour.
Real palettes that use #28281b
Tints & shades
Harmonies
Contrast
| #28281b as text | Ratio | AA | AA large | AAA | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Aaon white | 14.9:1 | pass | pass | pass | Passes AAA — no fix needed. |
Aaon black | 1.41:1 | fail | fail | fail |
Fixes keep hue and saturation and move lightness only, so the suggestion stays on-brand. Ratios are symmetric: the same numbers apply with #28281b as the background.
Brands using this color
Palettes built around it
Olive Grove
Open in tool →Olive and straw with a rust accent — Mediterranean and unhurried; good for food, wine and hospitality.
Clay & Linen
Open in tool →Terracotta, stone and olive on linen — the earth-tone default for ceramics, skincare and anything hand-made.
Riverbed
Open in tool →Wet-stone green and pebble grey with a copper accent — an earth palette that leans cool, for outdoor and wellness.
Darkroom
Open in tool →Sepia, faded ochre and a teal shadow on aged paper — the photograph-in-a-drawer palette, tuned so it still passes AA.
Mid-Century
Open in tool →Tangerine, teal and mustard on cream — the 1960s lounge trio, one of the few retro palettes with real hue contrast.
Citrus Grove
Open in tool →Orange, lime leaf and lemon — a citrus palette that reads fresh, for drinks, produce and anything seasonal.
Sepia Mono
Open in tool →A single warm brown from espresso to oat — the sepia scale as a working palette, not a filter.
Oatmeal
Open in tool →Four warm greys from bark to oat — the neutral palette that photographs well and never argues with a product shot.
Greige
Open in tool →Grey-beige with a hint of olive — the interior-design neutral; the olive accent is the only thing that isn't a shade of nothing.
Fonts for this mood
#28281b reads as muted, dark, luxury. The font library is tagged with the same vocabulary:
mcpConnect your agent — build around #28281b
live endpointPoint any MCP client at the shared colors endpoint and your agent gets the same engine as this page — direct_palette, edit_direction, check_palette, check_contrast — read-only, no key. Every direction it proposes comes with a /colors/d/… link: open it, lock what you like, paste the link back, and the agent edits rather than re-rolls.
endpoint
https://mcp.brandsweets.com/colors/mcpclaude mcp add --transport http brandsweets-colors https://mcp.brandsweets.com/colors/mcp
try this prompt
›analyze #28281b and generate a 5-color palette that keeps it as the primary; give me the /palettes/new link
tool url
/palettes/new/28281b-bbbea2-4e94df-272d1f-f1ede9?lock=0&style=vibrantWant the agent to remember your picks and write them into a living brand? Create a free BrandSweets workspace.
Machine-readable: color.md